perspective
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perspective
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Photo Source: laurdsed.files.wordpress.com
Mohan S. Rao
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he Sabarmati Riverfront Development, both as an idea four decades ago and approaching reality now, has raised interesting and at times acrimonious debates on the larger questions of development, design polemic and environmental concerns, specifically as relevant in the Indian context. Interventions in the public realm are never free of such debates or controversies, increasingly so when the larger development vision is driven by a select few. While one has to recognize that it is simply not practical to address every single viewpoint in such public projects, it is critical that the vision in principle address a larger spectrum of concerns that balances society, culture, environment and of course economics. Much has been written about the physical and spatial design of the Sabarmati Riverfront Development; as much on its impact on traditional social fabric, issues of equity and so on. This article intends to situate the debate around issues of
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environment and ecology. Of course, it is quite futile to separate these issues and examine them independent of each other in a transitional society such as ours unless one takes an extremely narrow and limited view of development. Every society has developed specific and unique responses to the natural environment. Traditional societies in particular tend to relate to elements of nature in a manner that is beyond the utilitarian and mundane. Cultural practices evolved over millennia recognize, respect, internalize and respond to these elements that respects their intrinsic and dynamic nature. Rivers in particular evoke not merely ideas of recreation or real estate but of an essential connectedness with nature; frequently invoked in spiritual, religious or cultural events. It has been particularly distressing to note the extreme disengagement of India’s planning and development processes from lakes and rivers over the past half century. Cities have continually turned
their backs- literally and figuratively – to river systems that in most instances have been the originators have settlements. A sudden shift to engineering and technology based system for managing water needs has meant that the role and perceived value of natural water systems vis-à-vis cities has taken a serious beating. Rivers are seen as little more than nuisances to be tolerated and at best used to serve human needs in the form of a convenient drainage channel. A rich tradition of long-standing hydraulic civilization has effectively been buried under ‘slums’, landfills and sewage works. In this context, the Sabarmati Development is certainly a distinct and welcome break from the standard way of acknowledging rivers in cities. Sabarmati is typical of the smaller river systems in peninsular India and is essentially a seasonal river whose flow depends on the rainfall in its catchment in the Aravalli hills of Rajasthan. The very nature of such river systems transforms
the landscape they meander through between extremes – a dry river bed that can be walked across to a raging torrent. While such systems are ‘understood and tolerated’ in their natural setting, they start becoming ‘inconvenient’ when seen through specific design frameworks. As stated in the EIA report of 2007, “The Sabarmati is a monsoon river that remains partially dry for most part of the year. But for water from the Narmada canal that met it upstream of Ahmedabad, the Sabarmati lacked aesthetic appeal. Its (riverfront) is unlikely to be an inviting public place conducive to cultural and recreational activities.” It is extremely important to understand this philosophical shift in the framework of aesthetics that does not see the river as the original reason for the city’s coming into existence; rather it questions the nature of and reason for the river’s existence in the city.
The stated vision for Ahmedabad to become a ‘world class’ city can be a useful starting point to understand some of the shifts and conflicts between perceptions and goals of ‘designer’ and the ‘designed for’. It is not too surprising to note that visions of world class city are invariably rooted in the Neverland of leisure. What is surprising though is the kind of leisure that is seen as aspirational. “It’s like a dream that one lives. Waking up by the river, driving down the riverside; board meeting with vast blue vista in the background and then a cruise across the water for a power lunch on the other bank... And then, a dinner on the gloating restaurant with family to chill out... In the midst of concrete and steel that is the dream that city planners are conjuring for apnu Amdavad.” 1 The process of diverting and disciplining an otherwise ugly and bothersome river does yield dividends, it seems. As declared by a prominent thought leader like KPMG, the Sabarmati Riverfront Project is in the list of ‘100 Most Innovative Projects’2; hailing it as ‘a project towards urban regeneration and environmental im-
provement, which will transform the river as a focal point of leisure and recreation’. Words such as ‘urban regeneration’, ‘environmental improvement’ and ‘innovative’ seem to often describe and decorate the development, albeit in a prosaic manner and here in lies the contradiction between the construed and the constructed. Depending on the lens from which the development is viewed – environment, social integration and equality, urban place making, infrastructure or political - the hierarchies of contradiction or the ‘lost opportunities’ may differ but nonetheless are significantly cumulative towards ‘Sabarmati’s Sorrow’. 3 It is easy enough to see the contradiction between the ground reality of a shifting, dynamic and living water system with myriad facets and the ‘requirement’ of a constant and unchanging canvas to help the city arrive on the global map of modernity. More so, when one’s vision of what is ‘modern’ is itself rooted in such a disconnected and irrelevant plane.
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